The History Behind 7 New York City Street Names

Modern life means constantly rushing to get places, especially in New York. Whether it’s the daily grind to get to work or the rush to hit happy hour, residents are probably concentrating more on getting somewhere than carefully considering the details of their surroundings.

But next time you're in New York—or if you're a resident already—try looking up from your phone to take a peek at the street names above you. Along with your more common numbered designations and things like "Park Avenue," you’ll notice the city has some pretty strange denominations. Here are seven of the more eye-catching, and the brief history behind their names.

1. Asser Levy Place

Tucked between the generically named 23rd and 25th streets, Asser Levy Place stands out like a sore thumb. Located not far from Stuyvesant Town, this unassuming street bears the name for a pretty prominent historical figure.

Said to have been born in what is now Poland and Lithuania, Asser Levy was one of the first Jewish settlers to land in the predominantly Dutch New Amsterdam. The governor at the time, Peter Stuyvesant, was “violently opposed” to the freshly emigrated Jewish community, unhappy at the fact that they were now allowed to trade and reside within the area [PDF]. Levy was not only the first kosher butcher in the land but also the first Jew to gain rights of citizenship in the country. Additionally, Levy donated funds to help New York fight the British Crown, and eventually took up arms against the British himself.

2. Maiden Lane

The history behind Maiden Lane’s designation is just as picturesque as it sounds. Known to Dutch settlers as Maagde Paatje (or “maiden path”), this portion of land once ran alongside a brook where women and girls would wash clothing. There are darker associations with the area too, though: Maiden Lane also saw a brutal slave revolt in 1712.

Today the street is one of many centers of commerce for the city, although the concrete still holds remnants of the city’s more ornate past. Passersby can take a look at the Barthman Clock, a 19th-century timepiece embedded into the intersection of Maiden Lane and Broadway.

3. Mott Street

Located primarily in the heart of Chinatown, Mott Street’s modern associations aren’t the most flattering. Once the site of multiple crime scenes and illegal activities, the street has garnered a somewhat seedy reputation over time.

But before it became affiliated with the seedy underbelly, Mott Street had patriotic associations. Joseph Mott, the street’s namesake, owned a tavern used as headquarters for General George Washington in 1775. His descendants proved dedicated to equally worthy causes, with Dr. Valentine Mott rising to prominence as one of America’s most influential surgeons.

4. Pearl Street

Before the concrete jungle fully took over, the streets of New York were dominated by oysters. Due to their bountiful number, the shells of shucked clams would pile up into what archaeologists call middens—large piles of domestic waste that have survived the centuries. One particularly large heap was located on the modern-day Pearl Street, giving rise to the mollusk-related moniker. Oddly, however, these oysters were not the pearl-producing kind—although they dominated a good portion of the New York market for quite some time.

5. Minetta Lane

Speaking of water-related items, did you know a once-babbling creek was paved over by one of the city’s more famous streets? That’s right: Known to the Dutch as Mintje Kill or “small stream,” Minetta Brook was “[a] brisk little brook full of trout,” according to one 19th century source, that was covered by the city’s expansion around the 1820s. It was also where a community of “half free” African Americans resided in the 17th century—former enslaved people that were allowed to live on the land by paying annual fees.

6. MacDougal Street

MacDougal Street is known for its vibrant nightlife and for hosting the early days of Bob Dylan’s career. But it also holds claim to a not-so-well-known spelling error.

The street was named for one Alexander Mcdougall, a Scotsman who emigrated to what would become the United States as a child in 1740 and settled in New York. Mcdougall made a name for himself in the mercantile trade and shipping business and was an early defender of American independence. He openly voiced his opinions against British rule, and was even imprisoned for passing out revolutionary pamphlets. His colorful life saw him commissioned as a colonel in the First New York Infantry during the Revolutionary War, become a member of the Continental Congress, and rise as the first president of the Bank of New York. However, how or why the second L in his name was dropped in the naming of the street remains a mystery.

7. Margaret Corbin Drive

Located at the city’s far northern tip, Margaret Corbin Drive is named for a young Pennsylvanian woman whose tough life molded her into a tougher lady. Her childhood saw the death of her father by Native Americans and her mother’s capture soon after; years later, the British killed her husband during the Battle of Fort Washington. Margaret, who was standing by his side at the time, quickly took his place in the conflict by handling his cannon—receiving several bullets as a result.

The U.S. government recognized her bravery by providing her disability compensation (as well as rum and whiskey rations) for many years. Although sometimes remembered as a “haughty and disagreeable eccentric,” the affectionately called “Captain Molly” is forever memorialized by the street running along the site where her brave acts took place.

16 Soothing Facts About Muzak

Whether you know it as background music, elevator music, or, as Ted Nugent once called it, an “evil force causing people to collapse into uncontrollable fits of blandness,” Muzak has ruled speakers for the better part of a century. Press play on your favorite easy-listening album and scroll on for some unforgettable facts about the most forgettable genre of music.

1. Muzak is a brand name.

Much like Chapstick, Popsicle, and a certain type of vacuum-sealing plastic food container, Muzak is a registered trademark. It began as the name of the company that first produced the easy-listening instrumental tunes that played in factories, elevators, and department stores. As its popularity grew, people started to use Muzak as a generic term for all background music.

2. Muzak was invented by a U.S. army general.

Library of Congress // Public Domain

During World War I, Major General George Owen Squier used electrical power lines to transmit phonograph music over long distances without interference. He patented this invention in 1922 and founded Wired Radio, Inc. to profit from the technology. The company first devised a subscription service that included three channels of music and news and marketed it to Cleveland residents for $1.50 per month. When Squier and his associates realized their product was a little too close to regular (free) radio, they started pitching it to hotel and restaurant owners, who were more willing to pay for a steady broadcast of background music without interruptions from radio hosts or advertisements.

3. The name is a portmanteau of music and Kodak.

In 1934, Squier changed the name of his business from Wired Radio to Muzak, combining the first syllable of music with the last syllable of Kodak, which had already proven to be an extremely catchy, successful name for a company.

4. Muzak has been releasing instrumental covers of pop songs since its inception.

The first-ever original Muzak recording was an instrumental medley of three songs performed by the Sam Lanin Orchestra: “Whispering,” by John and Malvin Shonberger, “Do You Ever Think of Me?” which was covered by Bing Crosby, and “Here in My Arms,” by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers from the 1925 Broadway musical Dearest Enemy.

5. Muzak was briefly owned by Warner Bros.

The sound of Muzak was wafting across the country by the end of the 1930s, which caught the ears of Warner Bros. The company bought Muzak in 1938, fostered it for about a year, and then sold it to three businessmen: Waddill Catchings, Allen Miller, and William Benton (Benton would later publish the Encyclopaedia Britannica and serve as a U.S. senator for Connecticut).

6. Muzak was designed to make factory workers more productive.

Muzak manufactured soundtracks, based on a theory called “stimulus progression,” that consisted of 15-minute segments of background music that gradually ascended in peppiness. The method was meant to tacitly encourage workers to increase their pace, especially during the productivity lulls that often occurred during the late morning and mid-afternoon.

7. Muzak helped calm anxious elevator passengers.

Since more advanced electric elevators diminished the need for elevator operators in the mid-20th century, passengers were often left alone with an unsettling silence that made them all too aware that they were hurtling upward or downward in a steel box. Soft, calming Muzak played through speakers offered the perfect distraction.

8. There’s a reason Muzak's tempo is slower in supermarkets.

Just like factory workers might move faster while listening to fast-paced tracks, you might slow down while shopping to slower-tempo Muzak—which is exactly what supermarket owners want you to do. The more time you spend in a store, the more likely you are to toss a few extra snacks in your cart. (It's unclear whether the slower music might inhibit the productivity of supermarket workers.)

9. More than one U.S. president endorsed Muzak.

Muzak was installed in the White House during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration, but he was arguably only the second biggest presidential fan of the genre. Lyndon B. Johnson actually owned Muzak franchises in Austin while serving as a U.S. Senator from Texas.

10. Andy Warhol was also a fan of Muzak.

Graham Wood/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Pop culture aficionado Andy Warhol supposedly said, “I like anything on Muzak—it’s so listenable. They should have it on MTV.”

11. Ted Nugent offered to buy Muzak for $10 million to “shelve it for good.”

In 1986, the Whackmaster put in a bid to purchase Muzak from parent company Westinghouse just to shut it down. According to the Ottawa Citizen, he called it an “evil force” that was “responsible for ruining some of the best minds of our generation.” Westinghouse rejected the bid.

12. Muzak didn’t formally introduce vocals until 1987.

As part of a rebranding campaign to modernize Muzak, the company started adding voice-accompanied tunes in 1987. Before that, Muzak broadcasts had only featured voices twice. The first was an announcement that Iran had freed American hostages in 1981, and the second was as part of a worldwide radio broadcast of “We Are the World” in 1985.

13. 7-Elevens blared Muzak in parking lots to chase off loiterers.

In 1991, 7-Eleven parking lots in Southern California became well-trafficked watering holes for youth who evidently had no place else to go. To deter them from loitering with skateboards, beer, and lots of teen angst, the stores blared Muzak—and it worked. “It will keep us away,” one young loafer told the Los Angeles Times. “But they’re torturing themselves more than us because they have to sit inside and listen to it.”

14. Seattle is the capital of Muzak.

Though it's well known as the birthplace of grunge, Seattle also had a thriving elevator music scene. Muzak based its corporate headquarters there in the 1980s, and three other leading background (and foreground) music corporations opened in the city over the years: Yesco Foreground Music, Audio Environments Inc., and Environmental Music Service Inc.

15. Kurt Cobain wanted Muzak to cover Nirvana songs.

When an interviewer told the Seattle-based rock star that Muzak didn’t recreate Nirvana tracks because it found them too aggressive for its purposes, an amused Cobain said, “Oh, well, we have some pretty songs, too. God, that’s really a bummer. That upsets me.”

16. It’s no longer called Muzak.

In 2013, an Ontario-based sensory marketing company called Mood Media acquired Muzak. The company, which provides music, smells, signs, lights, and interactive displays to businesses to achieve a certain mood, consolidated all of its services under the Mood brand, effectively killing the Muzak name (at least officially).

9 Myths About Theodore Roosevelt

Our 26th president was a man larger than life—and is forever much larger than life, thanks to the fact that he's on the side of a mountain. But as with any such figure, myths and legends arise. So we’re here to explain the truth behind some popular stories about Theodore Roosevelt.

There has long been disagreement about how to pronounce "Roosevelt." A 1902 New York Times article listed 14 different possibilities, from “ROSA-FELT” to “ROOZE-VELT,” “RUZY-VELL” to “RUZA-FELT.” The next year, Richard Mayne of the Department on Reading and Speech Culture, New York State Teachers’ Association, wrote to the Sun that the name was subject to 200 different pronunciations, but that most people pronounced the first syllable like "room." And legend has it that the two Roosevelt presidents pronounced their names differently. According to a 1984 article in the Washington Post, “Theodore Roosevelt's name rhymed with ‘goose.’ It was, to switch spellings a bit, ‘Ruse-a-velt.’ Franklin Roosevelt, a distant cousin, pronounced his name to rhyme with ‘rose’—‘Rose-a-velt.’ Since FDR served later and longer, his version has been generally adopted.”

Not so fast: We know that's not true, from TR's own pen. “As for my name, it is pronounced as if it was spelled ‘Rosavelt.’ That is in three syllables. The first syllable as if it was ‘Rose,’” he wrote in 1898. (He was used to the confusion, though; he wrote to his parents during his freshman year at Harvard that one of his teachers called him Rusee-felt, and that "hardly any one can get my name correctly, except as Rosy.") Later, FDR would confirm the same: In 1932, the Chicago Tribune verified with FDR's office—he was governor of New York at the time—that it was pronounced “Rose-a-velt.”

They weren't the only Roosevelts to weigh in: When Mayne wrote that most people pronounced the first syllable like "room," Theodore's uncle, Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, submitted a rebuttal. “It is rather a dangerous proceeding to assume that a man does not know how to pronounce his own name,” he wrote to the Sun, explaining that the family pronounced it “Rose-(uh)-velt.”

The two presidents may have agreed on the first part of their name, but maybe not the -velt part. Traditionally, Roosevelt is pronounced -velt, but in recordings of his manyinaugurations, FDR pronounces his last name more like "rose-a-vult." So if a pronunciation difference does exist, it might be nearer the end of the name.

Myth: Theodore Roosevelt rode a moose.

It’s a dramatic picture to be sure—Theodore Roosevelt riding a moose through a lake. It’s so ridiculously manly that it’s sometimes featured on lists of photographs you won’t believe aren’t photoshopped. But while this image wasn’t created using the popular image editing software, it’s still just as fake. It was part of a collage created for the 1912 presidential election, featuring Taft riding an elephant, Roosevelt riding a moose, and Wilson riding a donkey. In 2013, Houghton Library published a blog post detailing the story, with author Heather Cole explaining that it appears to have been an image of Roosevelt riding a horse where Roosevelt was cut out and pasted onto a separate picture of a moose. This also explains why focus, shadows, and most other features don’t match up between man and steed.

Myth: Theodore Roosevelt created the modern image of piranhas.

It’s a story that has featured in countless adventure novels—a member of an expedition goes to the shore of the Amazon with just his mule. The mule returns to camp alone, causing a frantic search for the missing person. They come to the water’s edge and see a devoured skeleton. The culprit? Piranhas. Except that’s not from any dime novel, it’s a story related to Roosevelt by his companions that appears in Through the Brazilian Wilderness, published in 1914 and written by Roosevelt, which details his adventures in South America.

The book features several stories about piranhas: that they’ll “snap a finger off a hand incautiously trailed in the water” and can devour a cow alive. "The head with its short muzzle, staring malignant eyes, and gaping, cruelly armed jaws, is the embodiment of evil ferocity," he wrote.

Roosevelt's book is also commonly cited as being the origin of the reputation of piranhas as ferocious carnivores. But he wasn't the first to make that claim.

In 1880, Scientific American declared, “They make nothing of biting an ounce or so of flesh from a man’s leg. People are sometimes killed by them. Hence Brazilians are shy of going into these lakes and streams if they suspect the presence of these fish. The fishermen claim that piranhas will gather in schools against the larger fish and attack them.” And an account from around 30 years before Roosevelt was born notes that “The horses and cattle sip only from the [water’s] surface, and hardly dip their nose below it; notwithstanding which it is often bitten off. Even the cayman flies before this fierce enemy, and turns its belly, which is not provided with scales, to the surface of the water: only the otter, whose thick fur resists the effect of the bite, is secure against its attacks.”

But even if Roosevelt wasn't the origin of the myth, he likely did much to cement the idea in the minds of the public that piranhas are blood-thirsty creatures. In reality, the fish are typically pretty relaxed ... until they're spooked. And they more typically scavenge for their dinner. Some species are even vegetarians.

Myth: Theodore Roosevelt cured his asthma with exercise.

In 2015, two researchers examined Theodore Roosevelt’s asthma, including the story that he cured it through exercise when he was around 12 years old. They found multiple references to asthma attacks when Roosevelt was an adult, such as after his first wife died and during a pillow fight with his children in the White House. Once, when his second wife was in labor, he took a train to get there, and his daughter remarked, “Both the engine and my father arrived in Oyster Bay wheezing.”

The researchers ultimately concluded that “in hindsight, it seems more likely that the improvement was coincident with the quiescence of asthma often seen in adolescence,” so Roosevelt himself may not have been completely responsible for his improved condition.

As for how the myth was perpetuated? Well, Roosevelt biographer Kathleen Dalton has an answer for that. "He ... encouraged his friends and authorized biographers to tell an upbeat, socially acceptable, stiff-upper-lipped version of his life," she writes. "He began, and they perpetuated, the myth that by force of will he cured himself of asthma." As his sister Corinne would write to a biographer, "he never did recover in a definite way—and indeed suffered from it all his life, though in later years only separated at long intervals."

Myth: Theodore Roosevelt was inspired to be a conservationist thanks to a camping trip with John Muir.

In 1903, Roosevelt and John Muir—co-founder of the Sierra Club, and also its first president—went on a three-night camping trip that has been described as “the most significant camping trip in conservation history.” In the years that followed, Roosevelt would become known as an ardent conservationist—which is often implied as the legacy of this trip.

The only problem with that story is that, by 1903, Roosevelt had been fighting for conservation for years.

In the late 1880s, alongside George Bird Grinnell (editor-in-chief of Forest and Stream) and a few other sportsmen, Roosevelt co-founded and was the first president of the Boone and Crockett Club. According to historian John F. Reiger, “it, and not the Sierra Club, was the first private organization to deal effectively with conservation issues of national scope.”

As Roosevelt himself explained in March 1893, the club was a group of men “interested in big-game hunting, in big-game and forestry preservation, and generally in manly out-door sports, and in travel and exploration in little known regions.” One clause of its constitution was “To work for the preservation of the large game of this country, and, so far as possible, to further legislation for that purpose, and to assist in enforcing the existing laws.”

As president of the Boone and Crockett Club (a position he’d hold until 1894), Roosevelt worked to pass the Forest Reserve Act, which as President of the United States he’d use to preserve millions of acres of land. Historian Edmund Morris writes, “Thanks to the [Boone and Crockett Club’s] determined lobbying on Capitol Hill, in concert with other environmental groups, the Forest Reserve Act became law in March 1891 ... One wonders if [Roosevelt] ever paused, while signing millions of green acres into perpetuity, to acknowledge his debt to the youthful president of the Boone and Crockett Club.” The Boone and Crockett Club would also be instrumental in the protection of Yellowstone in 1894.

Then where does the story that the “the conservation president” began thanks to a hiking trip with Muir come from? Something definitely happened. In 1902, there were 26 establishments or modifications of national forest boundaries, according to the USDA [PDF]. In 1903, it was 17 (though this was still more than previous presidents—in 1900, there were three modifications). In 1905, it was 60.

Historian Anthony Godfrey has a theory—that it was because of Roosevelt’s role as an “accidental president” filling out McKinley’s term. Over his partial first term, he attracted to the Republican Party like-minded progressives, so, when he won in his own right in 1904, Roosevelt was in a position to change the nation’s forestry policy. No matter what the reason for the change in conservation tactics, though, Roosevelt had been drawn to the cause for years before the camping trip with Muir.

Myth: Theodore Roosevelt invented the term Lunatic Fringe.

Roosevelt may lay claim to beginning its modern meaning—he wrote in 1913, “we have to face the fact that there is apt to be a lunatic fringe among the votaries of any forward movement”—but he was seemingly adapting an existing phrase: a literal lunatic fringe, which an 1875 newspaper described as “the fashion which our girls have got up of cropping the hair and letting the ends hang over the forehead. They used to call it ‘banging,’ but ‘lunatic fringe’ is the most appropriate.”

Indeed, Roosevelt's 1913 quote itself isn’t from a great political treatise; it’s in an article entitled “A Layman’s Views of an Art Exhibition.” In the same article he also said, “In this recent art exhibition the lunatic fringe was fully in evidence, especially in the rooms devoted to the Cubists and the Futurists.” (He went on, “There is no reason why people should not call themselves Cubists, or Octagonists, or Parallelopipedonists, or Knights of the Isosceles Triangle, or Brothers of the Cosine, if they so desire; as expressing anything serious and permanent, one term is as fatuous as another.”)

Roosevelt would eventually use the phrase more explicitly in a political context—after receiving a painting of one of his heroes, he proclaimed in a letter to a friend that “I am always having to fight the silly reactionaries and the inert, fatuous creatures who will not think seriously; and on the other hand to try to exercise some control over the lunatic fringe among the reformers.” But according to Safire’s Political Dictionary, the term was revived and given new life by FDR in the 1940s, who used it explicitly to refer to the “fear propaganda” that has “been used before in this country and others on the lunatic fringe.”

Myth: Theodore Roosevelt was the first president not sworn in on a Bible.

The world of Bible usage during presidential inaugurations is a dicey one, as often (especially for early presidents) the evidence is inconclusive [PDF]. John Quincy Adams wrote, “I pronounced from a volume of the laws held up to me by John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, the oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States,” and LBJ used a Catholic missal after Kennedy was assassinated. Others are more obscure. For instance, Calvin Coolidge is often listed as being sworn in on the family Bible after Harding’s death, but in his autobiography, Coolidge explicitly noted that “The Bible which had belonged to my mother lay on the table at my hand. It was not officially used, as it is not the practice in Vermont or Massachusetts to use a Bible in connection with the administration of an oath.”

The assertion that Roosevelt didn’t use a Bible when he was inaugurated in 1901 after McKinley's assassination comes from Ansley Wilcox, the Buffalo resident who owned the home in which Roosevelt took the presidential oath. According to 1905’s Historic Bibles in America, Wilcox recalled, “no Bible was used, but President Roosevelt was sworn in with uplifted hand. As I recollect it, there was design in this. There were Bibles, and some quite interesting ones, in the room and readily accessible, but no one had thought of it in advance, there being little opportunity to prepare for this ceremony, and when Judge Hazel advanced to administer the oath to the new President he simply asked him to hold up his right hand, as is customary in this State. We seldom use Bibles in this State in administering oaths except in court rooms, and they are not required even in court rooms.”

Myth: Theodore Roosevelt was the presidential savior of football.

In 1905, college football was becoming increasingly controversial due to multiple deaths and injuries, so Roosevelt summoned representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to “clean up” the sport. A committee met and drew up new rules (a more thorough discussion can be found here), and then Roosevelt largely stepped away from football reform.

Just a few years later, in 1909, Harper’s Weeklyasked “Dr. Hadley, Dr. Lowell, Dr. Wilson”—a reference to the presidents of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, respectively—“don’t you think football, as it was played this year, is a little rough? There had been twenty-seven deaths up to November 21st ... You could stop this kind of football if you chose, you three men. The mothers can’t, poor souls.” Wilson responded by writing Lowell and Hadley to have “an informal conference ... to save a very noble game.” The three schools met, and by May 1910 came up with a suite of new rules. According to a 1988 article by John S. Watterson, the rules that emerged were “seven men on the line of scrimmage, no pushing or pulling, no interlocking interference (arms linked or hands on belts and uniforms), and four fifteen-minute quarters,” as well as readopting the forward pass in a limited role.

Soon after the rules were widely adopted, Watterson explained that “In the years that followed the reforms on the gridiron, football evolved rapidly into the ‘attractive’ game that Wilson had advocated and a far less brutal game than the unruly spectacle that Roosevelt had tried to control.”

Myth: The 1912 election was Theodore Roosevelt’s last attempt at the Presidency.

After Roosevelt lost the 1912 election, it might seem that the Progressive Party faded into nothingness—but that’s not quite true. Roosevelt’s running mate in 1912 was governor of California Hiram Johnson, who ran for reelection as governor in 1914 as a Progressive and got more votes than the Democratic and Republican candidates combined. In April 1916, John Parker ran as a Progressive candidate for governor of Louisiana, which was, according to a contemporary article in the Shreveport Times, a bid to boost Roosevelt’s power for the Republican convention coming up. Parker failed, but still got 37 percent of the vote (in 1912, the Republican gubernatorial candidate only got 8.78 percent). Such was his success that at the 1916 Progressive Convention, Parker was a natural pick for Vice Presidential candidate.

But what to do for president?

A mile away, at the same time the Progressives were having their convention, the Republicans were also having their convention—and the tone couldn’t have been more different. According to a contemporary account, the Progressive convention and Republican convention were “as different ... as champagne from ditch water boiled and sparkled and effervesced,” because the Republicans were torn between Charles Hughes, who “they would give their eye teeth not to take” and Roosevelt, who “they would not have.” The Progressives, however, were firm in a desire for Roosevelt.

To avoid a repeat of 1912, the Republicans and Progressives held a series of meetings to try and come up with a compromise candidate. According to historian Edmund Morris the Progressives were willing to give away virtually their entire plank in exchange for Roosevelt’s nomination, while the Republicans made it clear Roosevelt was not an option. At the end of the first ballot, Hughes was far ahead of Roosevelt but without a majority. Quickly Roosevelt realized he wouldn’t win, so suggested Henry Cabot Lodge as a compromise candidate. It came to naught and the Republicans chose Hughes. At almost the exact same time the Progressives chose Roosevelt to run for president again.

The only problem was that Roosevelt didn’t seem to want the nomination. “I am very grateful to the honor you confer upon me by nominating me as president," he wrote to the Progressive convention. "I cannot accept it at this time. I do not know the attitude of the candidate of the Republican party toward the vital questions of the day.” Roosevelt did suggest an out, that the Progressive National Committee could wait to see where the Republican candidate stood on the issues and if they were satisfied with what they heard they could accept Roosevelt’s refusal. If they weren’t satisfied, they could talk it over with Roosevelt and decide the next step.

A little over two weeks later, the Progressive National Committee in a vote of 32-6, with nine declining to vote, endorsed the Republican candidate. The New York Timesdeclared, “The Progressive Party as a separate political organization died tonight.”

Except not really. There was still the issue of VP candidate John Parker. And Parker did campaign—largely against Hughes, and by inference for Wilson, although he explained that he’d “speak against Mr. Hughes’ candidacy. Of course, that would be in favor of Mr. Wilson, but I will speak as a Progressive and not as an affirmative supporter of the Democratic nominee.”

Come the election, the Progressive Party received 33,399 votes, down over 4 million from 1912.

In the days before the election, when it became clear Wilson was going to win, one of Roosevelt’s friends commented, “We can ... look forward to 1920. There will be nothing to it then but Roosevelt. No one can stop it.” To which Roosevelt replied “You are wrong there ... This was my year—1916 was my high twelve. In four years I will be out of it.”

Roosevelt died suddenly in 1919, but the Roosevelts weren’t out of the game yet. In 1920, Republican Warren G. Harding crushed James M. Cox as well as his vice-presidential nominee—Franklin Delano Roosevelt.